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Namco Bandai previously announced its intentions to publish From Software's punishing dungeon crawler, Demon's Souls abroad and the verdict is in: it's apparently been a big hit. The publisher told Eurogamer the initial run -- a "Black Phantom Edition" priced at £44.99 (€42), which includes the game, soundtrack, art book and strategy guide -- has sold out.

"I can't give you a number, but what I mean by an 'amazing success' is that all the stock we built of the Black Phantom Edition has sold out (apart from dribs and drabs)," said Lee Kirton, marketing and PR manager for Namco Bandai Partners UK. "For a game that's been out a long time overseas we believe it to be a success. Reviews scores and coverage have been amazing." He then added that Namco Bandai hasn't sold "hundreds of thousands of units, but we've been pleased."

On Friday, Namco Bandai will launch a standard edition of the game in the UK for a bargain price of £34.99 (€54), five pounds cheaper than the launch price of most new games.

World Tendency shifts to Pure White in celebration.

This is your lucky day, masochists! Atlus has announced that it will extend support for Demon's Souls' online servers until "at least" March 2011. When the game shipped in April 2009, the Demon's Souls user agreement made it clear that online functionality would be sponsored for "no less than six months". Now it would appear that the game's surprising success has led Atlus to extend that commitment significantly.

In celebration, Atlus is flipping the Demon's Souls World Tendency to Pure White, which will knock the controller-snapping difficulty down a few notches. The change should last for "a couple weeks," just long enough to lull newcomers into a false sense of security.

All good things must come to an end.

This is your lucky day, masochists! Atlus has announced that it will extend support for Demon's Souls' online servers until "at least" March 2011. When the game shipped in April 2009, the Demon's Souls user agreement made it clear that online functionality would be sponsored for "no less than six months". Now it would appear that the game's surprising success has led Atlus to extend that commitment significantly.

In celebration, Atlus is flipping the Demon's Souls World Tendency to Pure White, which will knock the controller-snapping difficulty down a few notches. The change should last for "a couple weeks," just long enough to lull newcomers into a false sense of security.

Atlus today confirmed that they will continue supporting the servers for online play in break-out Playstation 3 hit and game-of-the-year contender Demon's Souls until at least March 2011. Have you played it yet? More »

Atlus' hard-hitting PlayStation 3 action role-playing game Demon's Souls goes white in celebration of news that the company will keep supporting the game's online play through at least March 2011. More »

#ps3 Demon's Souls has only just come out in Europe, after an agonising delay. If you thought the wait would mean most of the target audience would have imported and passed on the local release, though, you're dead wrong. More »

From Software's brilliant and brutal role-playing game Demon's Souls is too cheap to pass up today, thanks to Amazon. Just $29.99 USD brings you a world of pain. More »

If you've got $30, a PlayStation 3 and an overabundance of supernatural, zen-like patience, you seem like a perfect candidate for a deal which recently cropped up on Amazon. Atlus's notoriously punishing action-RPG Demon's Souls is now only $29.99 through the retailer. If you prefer going to stores, or buying from a different website, you can get it for the same price from GameStop.

That's a pretty wicked deal on a decidedly wicked game -- though we must insist you make a few other Amazon purchases to complement your Demon's Souls experience.

Online retailers are beginning to understand exactly what it takes to get shoppers interested in their discounted products: Free money. Or, rather, pseudo-money. Amazon's learned this lesson well, and has added a nice little bonus to its already appealing offer for Atlus' punishing RPG Demon's Souls: Pick up the game for $33, and you'll get a free $10 Amazon gift card to boot.

Actually, forget what we said about "pseudo-money." Do you know how many things are on Amazon? In our humble opinion, Amazonbucks are just as good as cold, hard cash.

[Thanks Euclides!]

#namcobandai There's a feel-good story to be had behind the PAL release of role-playing game Demon's Souls: not just the fact it's on its way to Europe and Australia, but that the accompanying strategy guide has been written by fans. More »

Namco Bandai will unleash Demon's Souls upon European territories on June 25, ending the region's dearth of pleasurable pain, the publisher has announced. The PlayStation 3 exclusive will be released as a limited "Black Phantom Edition" package, featuring a soundtrack CD, an artbook and a strategy guide. Atlus, as you may recall, published the game here in North America, following its debut inn Japan under the Sony label. The game was co-developed by From Software and SCE Japan Studio.

If you're an anxious demon slayer looking to get a taste for what's in store, we suggest you check out our review.

#ps3 From Software's brutal role-playing game Demon's Souls, one of 2009's real surprise packets, has only been available in Japan and the United States. From June, though, (as suspected) it'll be available in PAL territories! That's you, Europe and Australasia! More »

Namco Bandai to publish From Software's epic dungeon crawler.

#ps3 European PlayStation 3 owners without the courage or wherewithal to import last year's brilliant Demon's Souls may be in luck. Namco Bandai appears to have picked up the brutal, dark role-playing game for your continent. More »

It was quite clear, once retailers began requesting re-ups of that dope Demon's Souls product, that publisher Atlus had unleashed a bigger hit than it had anticipated. But just how low had Atlus set its expectations? According to data from parent company Index Holdings (via Siliconera), Atlus had projected a mere 75,000 units in sales of Demon's Souls for North America.

Lo and behold, beyond Atlus' wildest, demonic dreams, folks actually enjoyed the game's masochistic mission -- like, a lot of folks, in fact: sales totaled 280,000 units sold through the end of February. And with sales figures like that, Atlus certainly can't ignore the potential in peddling a sequel. Demon's Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki wouldn't mind cooking up another hit, after all.

#gdc10 Sony Computer Entertainment published From Software's brilliant Demon's Souls in its native Japan, but when it came time to take it westward, it was up to publisher Atlus to step forward and localize the PS3 game. "That was a mistake." More »

Adventurers, your votes have been tallied and now Atlus is ready to unleash the Demon's Souls polar tendency event for Valentine's Day. Beginning today, Boletaria will shift to Pure White Tendency until next Tuesday. After that, the power of love will morph into its inevitable form of hate and plunge the world into Pure Black Tendency for the rest of the week.

To experience the event, players will need to be connected to the interwebs and it may require logging in more than once -- sometimes the servers hiccup. Happy questing!

Atlus is an awfully empathetic company. It realizes that not everyone gets all sunshine and lollipops around the 14th of February -- in fact, some folks experience the opposite sensation: Darkness and ... salt-water taffy? We guess?

With this dichotomy in mind, Atlus is allowing players to vote on the special event which will overtake its hard-as-hell RPG Demon's Souls on Valentine's Day -- will it be the easy-going White Tendency which appeared during the holiday season? Or the extra difficult Black Tendency which destroyed players on Halloween? Only you, and your either loving or jilted heart, can decide.

If you were among the unlucky number of gamers to suffer printing issues on the Demon's Souls strategy guide, we have some good news. Atlus has announced that the replacement guides will begin shipping this Monday, February 8. Late last year, after discovering that many Demon's Souls collector's edition guides had "unusual cover ink wear / fading" problems, Atlus opened a replacement program.

Thankfully, the company didn't deprive gamers of their guides in the meantime, requiring that only the cover be sent as proof of the defect. It's a good thing too, because that game is effing hard. Seriously, look at that thing up there. You're supposed to kill that? With a sword? Hard!

VideoGamePriceCharts.com, a site that tracks average online prices for video games and consoles, has released its year-end report for 2009, and if you were buying and selling games speculatively (we all do that, right?), you'll want to check it out. Okay, so maybe you weren't picking up the now-discontinued Demon's Souls Deluxe Edition because you hoped it would get rare, but if so, you're in luck: That game topped the list, raising in value from an MSRP of $69.99 up to a high of $116. Grand Theft Auto IV's Lost and Damned retail box (which contained a code for the DLC) is another big collector's item, and if you were so lucky as to nab a copy of Bass Pro Shops' The Strike (with Fishing Rod) for Xbox 360, then reel in the money, because it raised in value over 50%. Whew! Welcome to the exciting market of video game price speculation! For a little more practical information, you can also see which companies and consoles kept their value in 2009 -- turns out MTV, Atlus and Nintendo games all did well at resale, with the Wii (surprise!) topping the market for overall value held among its games. Of course, you should really be buying games (and supporting developers) for their quality, not for their resale value, but it doesn't hurt to figure out which ones will give you a few more bucks in return when you're done.

Your actions in the world of Demon's Souls can yield multiple results in the Tendency mechanic.

Atlus' Demon's Souls will take pity on the masses this holiday as the game shifts to the "pure white tendency" this holiday. What this means is that "new areas and special NPCs" will exist in Boletaria during that time -- as a bonus, enemies cause less damage and players inflict more. Pure white is not easy to achieve, so this is a great opportunity for players. Atlus does note that adventurers may need to "log in and out a few times before [the] tendency shifts to match the server." Demon's Souls had a similar event during Halloween, but that was "pure black." There is no shame in using the game's official wiki and, for soul's sake, we recommend using it.

Atlus has announced that it's previously revealed Demon's Souls strategy guide replacement program is now active. If you purchased the deluxe edition and wound up with a defective strategy guide -- the defective units have "unusual cover ink wear / fading" -- then all you have to do is visit the replacement program website and follow the instructions. In short, it amounts to filling out a form and shipping off the front cover and first page of the guide. Within 8-12 weeks, players should receive a shiny new copy. All requests have to be postmarked by December 31, 2009, so hop to it if you've got a defective copy.* *The editors of Joystiq realize that this post doesn't include a single crack about how incredibly difficult Demon's Souls is. Please accept their heartfelt apology.

Perhaps you've heard, but Demon's Souls is a hard game. Like really hard. Like bone-crushingly, soul-scathingly hard. Speaking to Game Informer, Demon's Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki explains why. According to Miyazaki, the difficulty was designed around giving players "a sense of accomplishment," specifically in regard to the soul collecting mechanic. For those who haven't played the game, souls act as currency and you lose all of them upon death. They can be regained, but only if you make it back to your bloodstain without dying twice more. Trust us, it's not as easy as it sounds. According to Miyazaki, "If the Souls could be recovered anytime, there would be no suspense or sense of accomplishment." He added that he wants players to feel like, "I did it! I made it to my bloodstain!" Of course, Miyazaki fails to mention the sense of utter, despairing failure one feels when they don't make it back to their bloodstain (a frequent occurrence). Regarding the possibility of a sequel, Miyazaki said he couldn't give a direct answer, but noted that the team learned a great deal on Demon's Souls and there were several things that didn't make it into the game. Given the opportunity, Miyazaki said he would "welcome the chance to create an even better game in the same style." Gluttons for punishment that we are, we'll take it.

Is the print wearing off of the cover of your Demon's Souls strategy guide? It's not entirely because you've been holding it for hours with your sweaty hands, desperately thumbing through the few pages in a feeble attempt to improve your in-game performance. Atlus announced that the cover to the guide, included with the Deluxe Edition of the RPG, is conducive to "unusual cover ink/wear fading." And because Atlus knows that you've grown attached to your security blanket strategy guide, the company will only ask you to send in the cover and first page if you'd like a replacement, and not the whole book. Full details on the replacement program will be posted here.

Kingdom of Boletaria will see stronger enemies this weekend.

The land of Boletaria in Demon's Souls will be plunged into "pure blackness" on Halloween for players connected to the internet. Publisher Atlus' announcement about its sleeper hit can be interpreted to mean that all players will have their world tendency shifted to black for the day (or a little longer), which affects enemy strength and player stats. A pure black tendency can mean that new passages and enemies may also exist. "World Tendency" in Demon's Souls is another aspect of the challenging RPG that has a significant impact on the player's experience. If you're a new player who happens to pick up the game on Halloween ... don't panic. Yes, the game is hard, but it'll be a little bit more so with the entire world black aligned.